Burnt Out

The other day I received an e-mail suggesting that a lot of us are burnt out. I accepted that for most people, but I'm a political junkie, who's always craving for more, so I thought I was above that. This morning, I just turned off the television, got on my bicycle went on a long ride because I got my fill of pundits telling me, "today's poll shows Romney ahead in this poll but Obama is ahead in early voting in the exact same poll. "

It's sad that our presidential election results comes down to about 113 counties and six states. We are so polarized and entrenched in our beliefs. It's sad how someone can make a fool of himself on a national stage like Governor Rick Perry did, go out and stump for Mitt Romney in Colorado and only manage to attract 60 people, but he still might be our next governor. I know it used to happen in the south all the time, but we now live in the days of Google where we can do some instant fact checking. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.

We now live in an era where marketing trumps the truth and if Mitt Romney wins using this method, it will be the standard bearer for all political campaigns in the future. The Romney campaign brushed aside the fact checkers early in the campaign, and it worked. Mitt Romney did a complete makeover for the first debate, and it worked because it threw the president completely off his game. We now have a virtual tie with the same President Obama competing with a different Mitt Romney than the one who won the GOP nomination. This is a gentler kinder Mitt Romney (in the last 3 weeks) who doesn't scare the soccer moms and says he will work with the opposition, although when he had a chance to do that as governor, he vetoed over 800 bills. It's the same Mitt Romney who constantly whined about the president attacking him in the third debate, as if he didn't stoop to that in the first and second debate.

The debates have come down to, who can say the memorable lines that will be talked about tomorrow and looking presidential; whatever that means. I can't believe that I sat there nervously saying, " please don't go all Ninja on him, President Obama" in one segment and in another I'm saying, " are you just going to sit there and let him get away with that?" The pundits have it right, it’s reality TV. That's too bad because global warming was not mentioned, the poor were mentioned only as an afterthought about food stamps, and competing thoughts about our education system was not discussed. Both candidates gave lip service to the latter and Mitt said he loved teachers, but it was more in the abstract. The president praised his "Race to the Top" effort, but we won't see the results for another other 10 years or so.

It's funny how I initially stayed away from Twitter because of the limited 140 characters, but I now prefer that media because it gives me back responses in real time. You get away from the “cut and paste" crowd but still have the ability to back up your statements with a link. Yes, I have to sort through a lot of tweets before I get to a good one, but it's usually worth the effort. I like having my smart phone nearby as I watch the debates because I can pull up Twitter, and someone has done all the fact checking for me. The best part about Twitter is that you don’t have to argue with nitwits who don’t know the basics of democracy, civics or economics. They still think a single person can lead our nation into socialism just because of their literal interpretation of the “general welfare clause “of our constitution.

In the next 13 days, I'm either going to quit blogging altogether, take a long exodus, or blog about something else other than politics; regardless of the election results. I successfully transitioned away from the VA forum without any lingering regrets, and I suspect walking away from a personal blog won't be that difficult. This is not a surprise to the people I have constant contact with via email because I made a decision way back in January, but then it was about quitting the VA forum and concentrating on a personal blog.